Paperboard partitions are used to separate adjacent bottles in a carton or carrier to prevent the bottles from contacting each other. This protects against breakage due to vibration and shock during shipping and handling. Typically, a partition used to separate the bottles of two adjacent rows consists of a panel situated between the rows, including transverse dividers which extend out from the panel between adjacent bottles in each row. Thus for a package containing six bottles arranged in two adjacent rows, the partition would include two transverse dividers. For packages containing a greater number of bottles the partition would include additional transverse dividers as necessary. Additional partitions are conventionally employed in a package containing multiples of these basic bottle groups to separate the bottles within each group, and a straight partition or divider is employed to separate the bottles of adjacent groups. In a typical packaging operation the transverse dividers of a partition blank are folded out of the plane of the blank to their final operative condition and the opened partition is inserted into a group of bottles by insertion equipment prior to loading the bottles into a carton.
Because the partitions are inserted from a fixed station of a packaging machine into a moving stream of bottles, the partitions must move rapidly into place so as to be properly located between the bottles of each group. If the partitions are moved into place too slowly, proper placement could be interfered with by the moving upstream bottles and could cause a temporary shut-down of the packaging machine to correct the problem. Rapid movement of the partitions into a bottle group is desirable in order to avoid such problems and to be capable of accommodating greater machine speeds. It has been found, however, that when the partitions are inserted at higher speeds they strike the hard surface over which the bottles are moving with such force that they tend to bounce back up out of the bottle group before they have a chance to be lodged into place. This of course is unacceptable.
It would be highly desirable and beneficial to be able to insert bottle partitions at rapid speeds while ensuring that the partitions will stay in place and not bounce back out.